


The Eye of the Beholder

by Lily_Padd_23



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst and Comfort, Cute, Established Relationship, Long-Distance Relationship, Love, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, References to spoilers through the start of season six, Season/Series 06, Sweet, mostly comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 16:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18144902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Padd_23/pseuds/Lily_Padd_23
Summary: Set sometime shortly after Season 6 Episode 3, Third-Day Story."Sam almost seemed to be getting even more fit. He had time to run again, to lift weights, to sail, to swim when the mood struck.  Josh barely had time to sleep.  Sam was in better shape every time they met up.  Josh was not."





	The Eye of the Beholder

The Eye of the Beholder  
By Lily Padd

        “Sam…” he muttered between sloppy kisses, “Sam… no, Sam… this isn’t doin’ it for me.”  
Sam met his eyes in the mirror, his tongue still on the corner of Josh’s mouth.  He playfully skittered his hand across Josh’s chest and whispered, “You sure?”  
        “Yeah, yeah,” Josh gulped, “I— don’t like this.”  He unwrapped himself from the turtle shell that was Sam.  They were sitting in the easy chair they’d shoved to the mirrored, sliding-door closet.  Sam perched in the space between Josh’s back and the back of the chair, his legs wrapped around Josh’s torso.  Josh pulled himself away from Sam, sitting on the edge of the chair and awkwardly scrambling to try and find his discarded boxers.  
        “Wait, we’re done?” Sam was still trying to catch his breath and catch up to what was happening.  
        “I… I need a breather or somethin’” was Josh’s halting reply.

This had been Sam’s idea.  Neither of them had ever been particularly adventurous lovers.  They had figured out what worked for them a long time ago and always came up satisfied. But with trust grown up over the years like ivy, this was the first relationship either had ever been in where they felt secure enough to giggle out fantasies side-by-side on pillowcases.  Nothing was ever too _out there_ … well, there was that time with the handcuffs, but that night ended up being less of a wild escapade and more of a series of hilariously unfortunate events that was perfect fodder for them to laugh about later on.

Anyway, for the most part, they were pretty old-fashioned, but every now and then, one of them would voice a secret desire, and they had a sort of unspoken pact that they’d try anything once, as long as it didn’t involve a great deal of physical pain or something that could potentially ruin their careers.  Some of these experiments ended up making it into their repertoire, but most ended with a fit of laughter and a newly found appreciation for their comfortably vanilla sex life.

But what Sam was observing in Josh at this moment was less of a “well, that was stupid, let’s move on” energy and something a little closer to anguish.  This wasn’t like the other times they’d cut a fantasy short.  Not like the time with the whipped cream bottle when, right when Sam was crawling on top of him, Josh had stopped, looked him square in the face and said, “Turns out I was wrong.  This isn’t making me horny, Sam.  It’s making me want pie.”  They’d laughed, washed each other off, ordered a pie from the bakery a block away, and went back to their usual business with much less confectionery.

Josh wasn’t laughing this time.  No twinkle of half-embarrassed half-delighted mischief in his eyes.  In hindsight, Josh had balked at this a little more than previous suggestions.

It had been two months since they had seen each other last.  Through no fault of their own, the promised every-other-weekend trips were decreasing.  They had always known this would happen.  Long distance was hard enough without the White House being involved.  And Sam wouldn’t be Sam if he didn’t always bite off more than he could chew at his new law firm.

During these spells, where one or the other or both just couldn’t get away, they made up for it with longer phone calls.  Sometimes dirty, but most of the time just talking about everything and nothing, debating and sparring, laughing and listening to each other breathe.  Sitting against his wall with an arm wrapped around his knees, Josh would forget that Sam wasn’t in the room.  Then he’d go to bed and still find himself curling up on what had become his side, still feeling strange to reach for Sam’s and find it empty.

They’d found a hotel in Austin, which was pretty close to being an equal flight.  Plus it was in a part of town where two men could get a room with one bed and not many people would bat an eye.

So Sam was buzzing with anticipation when his taxi dropped him off, and the familiar Friday night graveyard shift staff greeted him and gave him the key to their regular room, the one with the big closet with the shiny, full-length mirrors for doors.  The mirrors he’d fantasized about taking Josh in front of so many times.

Waiting for Josh, he sat on the bed and tried not to think about the bulge under his jeans as he pictured what he had resolved to tell Josh that night: he wanted a full view of their lovemaking.  He wanted to see all of Josh’s shoulders and see his back and neck arching over him.  He wanted to turn Josh around to see the parts of Josh he couldn’t see when his vision was skewed.  He wanted to look over around and relish the way that his hands looked over Josh’s chest and on his cock while he felt his own hardening nipples on Josh’s shoulder blades.  He wanted to watch them like a movie.  The thought had enraptured him ever since he saw the mirrors.  And after two months of nothing but beating off to the idea, he was ready to make it happen.

The sound of Josh’s key card in the door came about two hours later, and Sam shot up.  Without missing a beat, they had fallen into each other’s arms.  It also didn’t take Sam long to pick up on the fact that Josh was down.  Exhausted, but even more so than usual.  After the first burst of needy kisses, Josh planted his forehead on Sam’s shoulder and just breathed.

Josh wasn’t in a good place.  He hadn’t made COS.  His mentor wasn’t at the White House anymore.  His Sam wasn’t at the White House anymore.  His friends, whom he had thought of as family, were starting to feel like family in a new way, in a way that strained relatives felt when cooped up together for a holiday.  They were all on each other’s nerves.  He was spent.  Right now, even the glimmer of the next challenge, the new real thing, just made him feel as tired as the White House was starting to feel.  As the President was starting to look.  As his body was starting to ache.

Sam rubbed his hands across Josh’s back.  He knew all of this.  Josh’s voice on the other line was starting to get wearier.  He almost pulled Josh away and asked if he wanted to talk about it.  But they had two nights together after two months apart.  And their bodies, more than anything, needed to not talk about it.

Sam kissed Josh’s hair and let his hand shiver down the back of Josh’s pants.  Josh responded quickly, snapping right out of whatever fog had temporarily stopped him, cupping Sam’s face in his hands and kissing him frantically.  Once the initial contact and kissing was out of the way, Sam had mustered the restraint to pause and whisper, “Wait… I have an idea.”

Now, Josh squirmed in the chair they’d moved to this vantage point not five minutes ago.  Sam blinked at him.  
        “You okay, baby?” Sam asked, furrowing his brow.  Josh nodded, but stood up restlessly, running his hands back and forth through his curls for a second.  “Josh…” Sam watched him closely.  
        “Sorry, Sam,” he said shortly, “Not my thing.”  
        “That’s fine,” Sam assured, looking up at Josh with a tentative gaze, waiting to see if Josh would let the other shoe drop.  Josh just paced.  “What’s going on up there, sweetheart?”  
        “Not my thing!” Josh repeated again emphatically.  
        “So you said,” Sam sat up a little, drawing his knees in to cover his diminishing erection, “I’m sorry.”  
        “S’okay,” Josh bit his lip, eyes still wide and starting to look slightly panicked.  
        “You don’t _seem_ okay,” Sam said treading carefully, his voice still even, “Did I _do_ something to make you…?”  
        “I just can’t get off when I have to be confronted with the visual comparison,” Josh blurted, the words tumbling seemed to be out of his control.  
        “The _what?”_ Sam was perplexed, his eyebrows creasing in confusion.  
        “Looking at you…” Josh wildly gestured at Sam, “And then looking at this…” he went on, forcefully raking his hands across his chest like a kid trying to lose a scratchy sweater, “It’s just… I don’t need to think about that more than I already do.”  
        “Josh, what are you _talking_ about?” Sam asked, his voice still level but with a firm edge.  
        “Shut up, Sam,” Josh’s shoulders sagged impatiently, “Just shut— don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”  
        “I can’t _act_ like I don’t know what you’re talking about when I genuinely have no earthly idea what you are talking about!” Sam sat up on his haunches now, his own eyes getting wide.  
        “You look like you, and I look like this!” Josh pressed his fingertips into his small belly.  His belly that had been getting softer since Sam left the White House.  His belly that, like his arms, was losing definition over time.  Sam almost seemed to be getting even more fit.  He had time to run again, to lift weights, to sail, to swim when the mood struck.  Josh barely had time to sleep.  Sam was in better shape every time they met up.  Josh was not.

California took every good quality of Sam’s physique (which was all of them) and amplified them.  Bartlet’s second term seemed to have the opposite effect on Josh, accentuating all his least flattering features.  The growing circles under his eyes made him look paler while the San Francisco sun had Sam looking even more brown and glowing.  Josh’s hairline was continuing to recede while Sam’s silky, brown hair was longer, shinier, and even more streaked with blonde.  Josh’s eyes were sagging and tired while Sam’s burned an even more vivid blue in contrast to his dark skin.  Sam looked fit.  Josh looked like a guy who used to look fit.  Sam was taking care of himself.  Josh was not.

That’s what Josh saw when he looked in the mirror at them together.  He saw all the ways Sam was thriving.  All the ways he was not.  All the ways he could never stack up to Sam.  All the ways age was doing strange things to both of them: holding Sam back and pushing Josh forward.  The age difference had always been there, but seven years just wasn’t significant enough to ever matter.  What mattered now was that Sam was aging well.  Josh was not.

Looking at himself and looking at Sam, all he could think of was all the things he was not.

        “Josh,” Sam replied after a long silence, his eyebrows turning sympathetic, his voice cloyingly sweet.  
Josh jumped back in before Sam could say anything else, “Please, please, _please_ don’t… don’t start with some bullshit about my being every bit as good looking as you, because we know that if a focus group had to rank us, you’d get higher marks every time…” Sam opened his mouth to say something but Josh plowed over him, “And that’s fine!  We can’t all be a Greek God, but for the love of… don’t make me _look_ at it.”  
        “A focus group?” Sam feebly attempted to inject some lighthearted humor, “You trying to make it with a focus group in my absence?”  
        “Just… shut up!” Josh stomped his foot a little, suddenly feeling even more exposed, and grabbed the grey t-shirt off the floor that happened to be Sam’s.  
       _“I’m_ attracted to you, Josh,” Sam patted a hand on his own heart for emphasis, “Who gives a rat’s about a hypothetical focus group?”  
        “You’re attracted to me because you love me,” Josh retorted, “And that’s great and all, but we’re not gonna act like you aren’t biased.”  
        “You’re beautiful…” Sam started softly.  
        _“To you,_ ” Josh sunk to the edge of the bed, which was only a few feet away from the chair.  Sam readjusted in the chair, sideways between the armrests.  “That sentence ends with ‘to you.’”

Sam began shaking his head, trying to formulate the words to match his emotions.  This time, his heart moving faster than his mouth, rather than his brain moving faster than his mouth or the other common occurrence of his mouth moving faster than his brain.  
        “You don’t have to say anything,” Josh superseded, “I think I just need to take a shower, and then we can pick up where we left off before all this.”  
        “Josh,” Sam said deliberately, “I need you to give me, like, half a second here.  I need time to figure out how to say— I mean… these aren’t things I thought I had to say to you.  I thought you got this.”  
        “Got what?”  
        “Well, first of all— and I have three points— first of all, you’re a really, really gorgeous man,” Sam said, slowly, thoughtfully, earnestly, “You are… holy shit, Josh.  Do you know how many people check out your ass when you’re not looking?  It’s a lot.  I thought you knew how much people drool over you and that’s why you have such a big head.  You’re the senior staffer who had a fan page of sex-crazed girls for a reason.  It’s not just because you’re brilliant.  It’s because you’re hot.”  
Josh blinked at this word, his mouth going dry.  
        “Not like you though,” he finally said.  
        “Damn right not like me!” Sam cried, “You’re hot like you!  Josh, it would be weird if I dated someone who looked like me.  I’m not my type.  I want things that you have that I don’t.”  
        “You want a premature balding, under eye bags, a perpetually sore lower back, and looking every day of 45?” Josh smirked, and Sam chuckled softly.  
        “There’s nothing wrong with looking 45 when you’re 45,” Sam said, “I have always been attracted to the fact that you…” Sam blushed, “You look your age and younger and older.  You… you look so youthful and so mature at the same time.  Your dimples… and your smile are exactly the same as they were when we first met, but now you look… I love that you have these arms that look like they can carry me, but are also like…” Sam could barely look at Josh as he spoke, feeling like a kid at a slumber party confessing a crush, “Like a warm place to go.  I love that you have chest hair and dark hair all over your body and that you smell like a _man.”_   He blushed again, chuckling a little, “Josh, you are really sexy.  How could you not… I mean come on, you have a great body.  Even when you put on a few extra pounds, I don’t care.  People find you attractive, Josh.  People who think I look boring.  People who want somebody more… But people are attracted to you, and I’ve always been attracted to you.  
        “And that leads to my second point, which is that I have, in fact, always been attracted to you.  Way before we first started really becoming friends and way, way before I fell in love with you.  The first time you walked into my boss’s office on Capitol Hill, you have this thing, this thing you do with your lower lip, and I was done, Josh.  I was done.  It’s the sultriest thing in the world.  So yeah, it’s not an accurate representation of the course of events to say that I think you’re beautiful because I love you because my thinking you’re beautiful predates my loving you.”  
Josh just sat forward on foot of the bed, eyes wide and innocent, stunned, his heart racing.  
        “And my third and final point is that, despite the fact that yes, you are a beautiful and sexy man, just objectively—despite that— of _course_ I am going to think you are more beautiful than other people think you are.  And it’s not because I’m blinded by love or something.  It’s the opposite of that.  It’s because I get to see more of you.  I get to see all of you.  I get to see you at your most twinkly-eyed and goofy and when you give me that grin.  And I get to see you when you are sitting in bed reading some new policy initiative and you are so… into it… and your hands are in your hair, and your lips are pursed, and you eyebrows are doing that thing.  And I get to see you when you are about to come in my mouth, and your head tips back, and you can’t talk, and it’s like the moon is radiating off your skin, and you are just _glowing_.  Really glowing.  And I get to see you afterwards when you are all self-satisfied and happy and beaming at me and your eyes are… I get to see you when you are pissed off and ranting around the house and arguing with kitchen appliances, and all the little veins in your neck are going crazy, and it makes me feel terrible because you are so damn funny when you’re angry that I always have to try not to laugh.  And I get to see you when you laugh and those perfectly beautiful crow’s feet show up around your eyes.  And I get to see what you look like when you just step out of the shower and you’re all covered in water and it makes me want to… And when you’re falling asleep and you _still_ have that look of concentration on your face.  And I get to see you when you look at me across a room and you tell me you love me without having to say anything.  And I get to see you when you’re at your biggest and bravest and shove-your-legislative-agenda-up-your-ass-est and your chest is all puffed up, and I get to hold you when you think you’re about to break, and I get to…”

He paused because he saw Josh was crying.  And Josh never cried.  Never.  Sam had seen him cry twice the whole time he’d known him.  The whole 20 years.  Sam cried a lot.  Not like, _a lot_ a lot, but he cried enough to where feeling Josh rub his hand through his hair as he wept had become part of their relationship a long time ago.  Josh didn’t even cry while he recovered from the shooting.  Sam cried.  Josh’s eyes got wet with pain, he’d curse, and grumble, and go scary-quiet, but he didn’t cry.

The first time Sam saw Josh cry was after he got back from his dad’s funeral.  He hadn’t let himself cry the whole time he’d been in Connecticut because he needed to be strong.  So Sam had found him, in his makeshift campaign office, chair turned away from his desk, bent over a photograph, one he’d found in his old bedroom, of his dad teaching him how to catch a baseball.  A Polaroid his mom had snapped that had survived the fire.  And Sam put his hand on his shoulder and heard a sniff come out of Josh.  And Josh had turned around and buried his face into Sam’s stomach.  And Sam hadn’t seen him crying, but when he left, there were wet spots on his shirt.  They made love for the first time a few weeks later.

The second time, and only other time he had actually seen Josh’s tears fall from his face, was the night Josh had told him, months after the fact, about what happened on that Christmas Eve.  Sam had only ever gotten the gist before that night.  And Josh hadn’t cried audibly, and he hadn’t cried hard, but a few tears had spilled down his cheeks as Sam kissed him in the lamplight of his bedroom.

Now, in the lamplight of a cheap hotel room in Austin, Sam naked, Josh in under things, Josh was crying.  Not audibly.  Not hard. But a few tears were spilling down his cheeks.

It caught Sam totally and completely off guard.  He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t.  Josh wiped his eyes and looked back at Sam and whispered, “Fuck.”  
        “Are you okay?” Sam asked tenderly.  
        “You really love me, don’t you?” Josh mused with a flat chuckle.  
        “Yeah, Josh.”  Sam replied.  “This isn’t new information.”  
        “No it’s not,” Josh said wiping away one last tear, “But I think I just figured out that you love me as much as I love you.”

This made Sam shatter.  He had always been open and giving and enthusiastic about his love for Josh.  But Josh was stubborn, and Josh’s keen perception was selective.  Josh took a long time to see things for what they were if they meant something good was happening to him.  He tended to push those things down.  There were nights, even this far in, even after having said it so many times, where Sam would say, “I love you” as they ended a call, and Josh would just say, “Mmm hmm.”  But Sam knew.  Sam knew the man he loved. And he knew _how_ the man he loved loved.

Sam pulled himself up and moved to the bed, dipping to pull on his own boxer briefs, before encasing Josh in a hug. They breathed into each other, chests rising and falling in unison.  For a long time there was nothing but silence, their heartbeats, and their hands on each other’s backs.  When Josh’s breathing got even slower and started to sound sleepily heavy, Sam pulled away lightly and asked, “You want to sleep?”  
        “Nah,” Josh said with a snort, “I think I want you to keep telling me what a hot piece of ass I am.”  
And he was back.

**Author's Note:**

> West Wing and the characters in it do not belong to me, because if they did, the whole thing would've been a lot gayer.
> 
> Anyway, comments and kudos warm my little gay heart.


End file.
